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Wednesday, August 07, 2013

India is not responsible for the mess in Afghanistan

Tempers in India have been ruffled by
some recent writings associated with the Brookings Institution which
suggest that the road to peace in Afghanistan goes via Kashmir. The
director of the institution's intelligence project, Bruce Riedel's 2013
book Avoiding Armageddon, has said that Pakistan has created its
jihadist infrastructure to fight India directly in Kashmir and
indirectly in Afghanistan. Indian "flexibility" in Kashmir was
therefore, the key to game change in South Asia. Then
there was the essay by our own William Dalrymple, written for the
Brookings Institution, where he stated: "The hostility between India and
Pakistan lies at the heart of the current war in Afghanistan."

Stephen Cohen, the Brookings
premier South Asia expert has taken up the India-Pakistan issue in his
recent book Shooting for a Century, but takes a different tack which is
not germane to this argument. With
retreat staring it in the face, the US is being offered various options
by analysts and scholars. The India-Pakistan one seems convenient, but
it misses its target by a mile. There is no special India-Pakistan
rivalry in Afghanistan. There may be one imagined by Islamabad, but the
reality is that geography prevents New Delhi from any substantive
involvement in Afghan affairs. That
is why, the Indian effort which was mainly related to infrastructure
and social development in the past decade was an adjunct to that of the
US and ISAF's security operation, and with that security being
withdrawn, India is confronted by a major dilemma.

As a friend of Afghanistan and
a strategic partner of its government, New Delhi remains committed to
the economic and social development of the Afghan state. But that does
not mean that, for the sake of keeping the US happy, it can cheerfully
endorse its emerging policy of striking a deal with the Taliban, through
the dubious instrumentality of the Pakistan military. Beginning
with the Bonn and Berlin conferences of 2001 and 2004 respectively, we
were told that the mission of the western forces was to transform
Afghanistan. The state would have a new constitution, an elected
government and its policies would be in line with the best practices of
democratic countries of the west.

Developments

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has held multiple meetings with Pakistan's army chief Ashfaq Pervez Kayani this year

In 2013, the democratic project is
being blithely abandoned. The west says it needs to withdraw, and must
do so in good order. Therefore it has changed its order of priorities -
placing the need to leave Afghanistan in 2014 as number one. To that
end, it is willing to sup with the Taliban devil, and forget Pakistan's
betrayal. And it wants the rest of the world to applaud the move. The
problem for India is that the west's new road to Kabul is via
Islamabad. The Doha talks have been facilitated by Pakistan, as
indicated by the numerous meetings US Secretary of State John Kerry and
the special representative for Afghanistan James Dobbins have had with
Pakistan army chief Ashfaq Pervez Kayani this year. Pakistan,
as we know, virtually created the Taliban and the outfit has served as
its proxy in maintaining its influence on Afghanistan. The Taliban of
today is even more amenable to manipulation by Islamabad than it was
before. It is important to
be familiar with a bit of history. Pakistan did not have much influence
in Afghanistan till the rise of the Taliban. Actually relations between the two countries have been quite indifferent, to use a polite word, since the creation of Pakistan. Conventional
wisdom assumed that it was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan which
triggered Islamabad's support to the mujahideen; the reality is that
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was supporting Afghan Islamists against Kabul well
before that event. Pakistan's
Afghan policy, dictated as much by attitudes in Kabul, has never really
been related to India. Following the defeat of the Russians, the
Pakistanis had a free hand in Afghanistan. And what a mess of it they
made. The end result was the rise of the medieval Islamic Emirate of Mullah Omar and the homicidal al Qaeda.

Folly

Pakistan
bears a great deal of responsibility for what Afghanistan has gone
through in the last two decades. Now the US, once again, wants to hand
over its destiny to Islamabad. Considering the blood and treasure that
Washington has already expended in the last decade, this is
foolhardiness of a high order. But that is imperial hubris for you. Till
the Soviet invasion, Indian interests in Afghanistan were essentially
those of a friendly near neighbour. But following the invasion and the
American-led jihad, things changed. Designated
as the lead player in that jihad, Pakistan saw it as an opportunity to
get its own back on India. Parts of Afghanistan under mujahideen control
were used to locate training camps for terrorists. Besides a concern
for the fate of the Afghan people, New Delhi worries that with Pakistan
in the driver's seat, Afghanistan will once again become a training
ground for terrorists.

Responsibility

Even
so, New Delhi is unlikely to play the spoiler. The ball is really in
the American court and it remains to be seen just how they will pick up
the one that the Taliban have dropped in Doha. In the end, what will
matter is the leadership in Kabul and whether it can keep its nerve
against the psychological games being played by its mentors - the US and
EU - as well as the Taliban.
The Afghan National Security Forces appear to have the will to fight,
and if they are supported they can give the Taliban a run for their
money. The responsibility for the future lies firmly with the US and EU,
who messed up the war and now seem to be determined to mess up the
peace efforts as well. No
amount of analytical jugglery can shift the onus to countries like
India, whose role in Afghanistan may be important, but is still
secondary. What India
and other countries leery of the Taliban need to do, is to push the US
and the EU to adopt a policy that will benefit Afghanistan in the long
run, rather than be tailored for their immediate need to exit. Mail Today July 22, 2013